After a two hour ride, we arrived at the Aeta Community in Batiawan, Subic Zambales around noontime. Unfortunately, we got stuck on the rough road because of a heavy shower before. With the help of the people from the community, we where able to get thevehicle back on the road again after a while.
Our group of staffers, clients from the PREDA Home for Boys, volunteers and interns separated to go to the different spots inside the community to sort and prepare the mango’s for the further transportation. The Aeta people already collected the mango’s and brought them to several places all over the community.
As I experienced at other communities as well, I could not see the people using any chemical fertilizer or pesticide to make sure that the mango’s can be certified as fair traded and biological.
Beside from the Karabaw mango’s, PREDA is also buying the Pico mangos to sell them to Profood, a manufacturer located in Bulacan, Central Luzon. The PREDA dried mangoes and juices to be exported are made of the Karabaw while the Pico mango’s are being
shipped to Cebu where they are processed to mango puree. The Pico mango’s are also being sold to the local markets.
We sorted these different kinds of mango’s and put them to the baskets before weighing them. To make sure that the farmers receive the correct payments, the PREDA staffers noted and summarized the exact amount of kilograms of every single farmer. Due to this year’s huge crop, it took us many hours to process all of the mango’s. After transferring them to the other vehicles to deliver them directly to Pro food in Bulacan, we got back to the PREDA building in Olongapo on the following morning.
